His Phoenix
by DaisyMayBeCrazy
Summary: A snake and a lion could never be together. Draco and Hermione are opposites. Two inferiors united under one circumstance; their love for each other. But Hogwarts is in danger, with Harry becoming suspicious of Draco's change in character, Hermione is left fighting with two choices; fight for her friends against the dark side, or to stay with her love no matter what. Live or burn.


He was the first thing she noticed when she had gotten onto the train. He stuck out like a sore thumb, his hair an exuberantly bright blonde, skin pale and thin and pulled tight over a weedy and taller than average body.

When Hermione had stood on the platform of 9 ¾ with her parents, she had the unexplainable and uncomfortable feeling of being watched by someone, and her parents had felt the uncomfortable and alien feeling too.

Her parents.

She had missed them, but she was happy then, that her going away meant that her parents could continue with their dreams of travelling. Despite her passion for reading, Hermione had never enjoyed learning at her primary school. She had found the work difficult. She could not focus on the words of her maths and English books, her imagination drifting to other wonderful and diverse places, a place where she felt she could finally belong.

Her parents always knew that their Hermione was different. As a baby she always cried, and as she did the lights would always flicker in protest, on and off and on at off rhythmically to their baby's cries. During primary school as she read more and more books, her mind had gotten more extensive like her library. She remembered reading a book about a girl who could move things simply with her mind, and as she focused more on more on doing so, slowly but sure each book toppled and wobbled and then finally gently flew to her hands and the words poured into her mind

Her parents, needless to say, were hardly surprised when Hermione had received her letter of acceptance to Hogwarts on her 11th birthday. When she had finally climbed onto the glistening model of the scarlet Hogwarts Express in her Wizarding robe, her wand in her robes and fresh knowledge in her head, she had finally had that sense of being that she belonged.

His eyes were grey. A deep grey that reflected an inner turmoil masked by an outer impassive shell. She noticed this as she gazed into them now.

"Granger, why are you looking at me like that?"

_"Don't look at me. Mudblood."_

Draco Malfoy had pushed past her, his eyes and his face scowling over her in an ugly and bullying grimace that made her stomach quiver. His eyes were only on hers for a second before he was charging forward once more down the small passageway, his two cronies that towered over her small eleven year old frame barging past her just as hard with sniggers that forced her to drop her books to the floor. His eyes had only been on hers for a moment, but they left her with an uncomfortable familiarisation. She had known almost instantaneously that those were his eyes that had watched her on the platform.

His grey eyes stared back. But this time, the inner turmoil clouded underneath his arrogant mask was greater, Hermione could sense it. She could still see the affection in his eyes that had always been there, but his skin was paler, clammier, his face tighter and the dark lines under his eyes had become more prominent. He was still arrogant around her of course, but the flirtatious arrogance she enjoyable responded with quick remarks. But he had lost his spark, and she couldn't help but selfishly worry that whatever it was that had made him lose his spark for life, had made him lose his spark for her.

"You've changed."

"Isn't that what you've been trying to get me do to benefit the rest of the world for the last few months Granger?"

He smiled; but it looked alien on his sharp face and his eyes only shrouded further into a graveness at his tired words.

She pulled away slowly, a dryness suddenly harrowing in her throat as nervousness clutched at her belly. Malfoy noticed the change of electricity in the air, the petals that fell from the manifested tall cherry tree above them in the room of requirement finally slowing to a stop. He studied her soft and distressed face for a moment before slowly rising onto his hands, his face a few inches from her as he gently fingered her hair and pulled out a supple petal entwined with her brown locks that had fallen free from her loose ponytail. She looked at him then, her warm, welcoming, brown eyes staring deep into his, and then at his fingers as the petal that held lax in his fingers softly spurted into a small and white bird, its feathers rippling as it danced on Hermione's shoulder before quietly sweeping into the tree above them.

Draco's fingers, long and hard and yet so surprisingly gentle on her face languidly touched her chin whilst he watched the small and sweet smile fall from her face.

She touched his face with her fingertips, feeling whole for the first time in a long time. Their connection, this rebellion between the love of a lion and a snake was full of passion and heated closeness, where most normally it was empty. But Hermione held no regret for this. And neither did Draco. She hoped.

She took a deep and nervous breath. as she quietly ran her fingers through his hair. "There is something wrong isn't there? Not just with you… out there." She looked out the window at the sky above Hogwarts. Only clouds and greyness consumed, and no shreds of happiness slipped through the dark abyss. The summer was no longer warm and dry, it was wet with chronic despair and lost hope as children cried for their lost families and the world outside was eaten and submerged within a blanketed darkness that she felt only few could break.

The weather was like Malfoy.

"Yes. It's changed.'

Her fingers trailed over his cheeks, through his hair, their faces inadvertently closer as he pressed her closer with his warm hand on her petite waist.

"And it's to do with... Voldemort?"

"Yes." Their faces pressed closer. She could feel his hot breathlessness on his cheeks, warm and real. She responded in exactly the same way, the urge to dust his face with kisses being so close to give in.

"And you know what it is."

He hesitated, his lips hovering over hers.

"Draco?"

He sighed for a moment and moved her hair from her dour and incensed eyes before finally moving away from her face. "…It's complicated Hermione."

She paused, hesitating over him once more before shaking her head in denile."No it's not… you're complicated," She pulled sat up from him in frustration, her frown knitting her eyebrows together, her eyes angry and her tone of voice high in her own way of showing off her discomfort. "You're 16 Malfoy! If whatever you're doing is complicated then you shouldn't be doing whatever it is!"

"I'm sorry I'm a boy with baggage problems Hermione." He responded coolly.

"No… you're just a dishonest one." She huffed, rising angrily to her feet.

"Well you're not perfect either!" He yelled after her.

She stopped mid-flounce towards the door and slowly turned to face him; her eyes glaring at him yet shining with tears like they were whenever she attempted to stop crying around him during or after an argument. It was something that had been occurring more often, and more frequently.

"No... I'm just a mudblood. We can't all be pure bloods in this world." Her face screwed up miserably, and then the door was open and then shut followed by the loud echo of emptiness, and Hermione was no longer there.

Malfoy sat on the floor, staring after her restlessly. His skin was clamming up worse than before. He detested arguing with Hermione, she was the only singular thing that made sense to him in the world, but she was also a tangle of complex conundrums he wanted to detangle and organise until she was bare to him. If only she was not friends with that stupid _Potter _and that _Weasley_ git who so obviously was more than attached to her, he could be satisfied that she was his, and he could finally strip her raw to her soul, only bare to him.

But despite this, she did not belong to him. Hermione did not belong to anyone. She needed no-one to cling to, she was brave and relentless and strong. It was he who needed her.

He was hers, a convoluted, cowardly mess that somehow, sporadically, was wanted back by someone loving and human. If he did not belong to her, he was the needy toy to his parents, their pawn to perform their moves, and he hated that just as much as he hated knowing that he knew no other way to live his life then to belong to someone, to be controlled by a higher power.

_…trust no-one Draco…_

He slowly rose to his feet, absent mindedly scratching at the skin underneath his left forearm. It did not burn anymore, it just itched.

Sweetly, the bird from above swept gracefully onto his shoulder, singing pleasantly through the room.

His hand crushed the puny thing. It let out a small squeak in protest, but then it was simply nothing more than it was before, nothing. Just a layer of ash upon his robes. He brushed the specks away before finally leaving the huge and once peaceful room behind them.

The ashes of the once sweet bird remained on the floor as the final embers died. Whatever he touched nowadays, always seemed to burn and change ash and fire. He could only beg and hope, that Hermione was his Phoenix.

The last cherry blossom touched the ground.


End file.
